Audience
by EYESviolet
Summary: Poetry intermixed with regular writing. A girl, back at home, watches her District's tribute in a part of the Games. Read and review, please! Thankies.


**Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins, and I do not own Hunger Games the series.**

**Note: This is pretty self-explanatory. Please read it—I worked very hard on this and I like it a lot. Read and review, my lovelies! Thankies. –E.v. **

You watch as the inexpensive TV's screen ripples in long, colorful stripes as your father returns home from the factory line, slamming the door, and triggering the cheap electronic's malfunction. Patiently, you wait it out, although your fingers raise grooves in the worn loveseat's gray material. With a shudder and a nasal buzz, it settles again, returning to the poor-quality show.

It has been two weeks since your best friend, your three-year love, your utmost companion, was chosen for the Hunger Games. He will live. Yes. _He must_, you think, desperately. _He cannot leave me_.

The cameras are focused on the Career's camp, stocked readily with everything they will need to succeed. You watch a tense stand-off between the behemoth-sized District Two boy and his pack companion from District Four. Soon, it is resolved, and the cameras swivel and jump, and… _yes._

There he is. You watch ponderingly as he cooks his snare-caught rabbit, barely aware your knees are locked on the edge of the seat cushions and your fingers dig into the worn, rough material. Your mind feels hyperactive, aware. You consciously scope every edge of the screen, staring for movement, just in case someone is coming. You do not even consider the fact that it would not matter even if you did see anything. You are with him, always. Yes.

You relax slightly: it appears nothing is happening. You nod in satisfaction as he purifies his water bottle and packs away the remaining meat. He is doing well for himself. _Too well_, a paranoid voice, your new enemy, whispers at you from the back of your mind. You ignore the voice.

However, you cannot ignore the clattering footsteps and snap of twigs near him, on the screen, coming from the far left corner.

_Panic. Panic._

He turns with a start, snatching up his bag, seizing his last item, a short knife, and taking off. The cameras follow him every step, making it appear he has not traveled any distance at all. The shouts crop up behind him.

_No. Panic._

The heavy, thudding footsteps—unmistakably those of the Careers.

_No. No. No. NO!_

_Twisting, lurching, wrenching_

_You do not realize…_

_This is your heartbeat._

Your father, oblivious, leaves the house, slamming the door shut again—the TV ripples. No! wait! You're lurching forward, grasping wildly at the edges of the screen, attempting to manually fix it: you know this has never worked before, but you cannot help it—

_Only noise_

_You hear only noise_

Thud. Thud. Thud. Crunch. A commanding shout, a jeer, a catcall. A thump. A yell of agony.

"NO!" you do not realize you're screaming, too—

_Wavering, rippling, lines of barbed color…_

Solid shapes. Yes! You scour the screen, determined, anxious to discover what has happened. He lies in the lower branches of a tree, clutching a bleeding shin, exhaustion paling his skin. The Careers stand below, sneering up at him.

They jeer and yell, antagonistic, condescending voices spiraling upwards around the tree.

One of them, the slightest, a girl from Four, begins to climb cautiously, short sword raised poignantly, with precision. You know she can use that deadly point of steel.

He watches her, still rasping for breath, clutching his ankle.

_No, no, no…_

"Climb! Climb!" you screech at the screen, unaware, in your panic, that he is far from hearing you.

He makes a halfhearted attempt, but he has lost too much blood—his face is wintertime, his pantleg a crimson sunrise. The Four girl is close, now; her teeth are bared in a grim, deathly smile of anticipation. She reaches up—

_Yes—no! no! nononono! NO!_

_Fine-skinned fingers_

_Speaking of wealth and status_

_Are transformed_

_Into point-tipped, monster's claws_

_In your eyes…_

She grasped his ankle in her free hand, and, painfully, slowly, she pulls downward…

_Her eyes are of a hawk_

_Her teeth of a wolf_

_Her beauty, once so real…_

_Now, just superficial_

_Unreal_

Because this cannot be happening. You refuse to believe she is pulling his white, dying body from the branches of a tree. Slowly, inch by inch…

"No!"you sob furiously, slamming your fists into the moth-eaten carpet, pulling up dried tufts carelessly, tears of salt clouding your vision.

He falls.

_In a sinuous_

_Catlike movement_

_The girl leaps down_

_Draws her sword back_

_Plunges it downward_

_Once_

_Twice_

_Again._

All is silent.

_Writhing agony_

_Burning_

_Slashing_

_Tearing_

_Destroying_

_Your heart throbs_

_Physically painful_

_Your lungs rasp_

_Your eyes sting_

_Your throat closes…_

"NOO!" you scream, reaching up, desperately, to find purchase on the TV, shaking it madly, sobbing, staring at the warped lines of gray, blue, green, black, white, as though they possessed an answer.

_You are blind_

_To the screen_

_To the room_

_To the tears_

_You are deaf_

_To the buzz_

_To the shouts_

_To the cannon._

You are lost.


End file.
